A Short History of Germany

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Title: A Short History of Germany

Author: Mary Platt Parmele

Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34397]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY ***

Produced by Al Haines

A SHORT

HISTORY OF GERMANY

BY

MARY PLATT PARMELE

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1898

COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY

MARY PLATT PARMELE

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND

A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE

A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY

A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN

PREFACE.

It is more important to comprehend the forces which have created a great nation, and the progressive steps by which it has unfolded, than to know the multitudinous events and incidents which have attended such unfolding.

In order to forestall criticism for the absence of some events in this History of Germany the author desires to say, that there has been an effort to keep strictly to the main line of development and to resist the temptation of introducing details which do not bear directly upon such line.

The bypaths of history are fascinating, but they are of secondary importance, and may better be explored after the main road has been traveled and is thoroughly known.

Such is the ideal which has been very imperfectly followed in this book.

M. P. P.

NEW YORK, June 21, 1897.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Indo-European Migrations—Divisions of the Aryan Family into European Races—The Teutonic Race

CHAPTER II.

Hermann—Defeat of Varus—Characteristics of the Ancient Germans

CHAPTER III.

Social Conditions—Form of Government—The Goth in Rome—A Gothic Kingdom in Spain—The Teuton Race Covering the European Surface—The Angles and Saxons in Britain

CHAPTER IV.

Ulfilas—The Hunnish Invasion—The Roman Empire Perishing—Its Conversion—An Eastern Empire—Increasing Power of the Church—Charlemagne—France and Germany Separated—Feudal System

CHAPTER V.

Early Conditions—Hungarian Invasions—Creation of Burgs—Knighthood—Pope and Emperor Become Rivals—Henry IV.—Canossa—First Hohenstaufen—Welf and Waiblingen—The Crusaders—Conrad—Frederick Barbarossa

CHAPTER VI.

Source of Weakness in the Empire—The Great Interregnum—The Nibelungen Lied—The Hanseatic League—The Guilds—Meistersingers

CHAPTER VII.

Conditions—First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern—Swiss Freedom—Intellectual Awakening—The Golden Bull—Hussite War—A Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of Brandenburg—Discovery of Gunpowder—Conditions Existing under Frederick III.—Invention of Printing—The Passing of the Old and Coming of the New

CHAPTER VIII.

General European Conditions—Centralizing Tendencies at Work—Maximilian I.—A New World—The Rise of Spain—Isabella—Charles IV.

CHAPTER IX.

Triple Game between Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles IV.—Leo X.—Luther—The Diet of Worms—Protestantism Born—Margrave of Brandenburg Usurps Sovereignty over Prussia—The Peasants War—The Augsburg Confession—Charles V. Thwarted—Protestantism a Dominant Power in his Empire—Schisms in the New Faith—Calvinism—Reformers—Lutherans—The Schmalkaldian League—Anabaptists—Abdication of Charles V.—Philip II.—Death of Charles—Ferdinand I.—Council of Trent—Society of Jesus

CHAPTER X.

A Protestant Germany—A Divided Protestantism—True Meaning of the Struggle—Unfruitful Waiting—The Renaissance—Music, Art, Letters, Born Anew—Thought Awakened—Copernicus—Galileo—Kepler—Impending Calamity—Protestant Union and Catholic League—Thirty Years' War Commenced—Wallenstein—Gustavus Adolphus—His Triumph and Death—Richelieu—Death of Wallenstein—Peace of Westphalia—Division of Territory

CHAPTER XI.

Romano-Germanic Empire Perishing—European Conditions—Louis XIV.—Decay of National Spirit—Rise of Brandenburg—Combination against Louis XIV.—Spanish Succession—Under Frederick I. Brandenburg Becomes Prussia—Alliance with England—Marlborough and Prince Eugene—Blenheim—Peace of Utrecht—Territorial Changes—Charles XII. and Peter the Great—Pragmatic Sanction—Frederick William I.—Stirrings of Thought in this Time of Chaos—Birth of German Speculative Philosophy—Spinoza—Soul Awakening

CHAPTER XII.

Frederick the Great—His Childhood—Von Katte's Execution—Frederick at Potsdam—Frederick II., King of Prussia—Maria Theresa, Empress—War of Austrian Succession—Silesia—Personal Traits of the Two Sovereigns—Frederick Joins France against Austria—Peace of Dresden—Frederick Becomes The Great—Healing the Wounds Left by Two Wars—Voltaire's Influence—Frederick a Reformer and a Despot—Growth in Thought and Birth of a Native Literature—Voltaire at Frederick's Court—Change Wrought by a Nearer View of King and Poet

CHAPTER XIII.

War over American Boundary between England and France—Maria Theresa Joins France—Her Policy—A Combination against Frederick II.—Seven Years' War—Peace of Hubertsburg—Silesia Forever Abandoned by Austria—Prussia One of the Five Great Powers—Healing Wounds Again—Conditions External and Internal

CHAPTER XIV.

Marie Antoinette Married to the French Dauphin Louis—Unsuspected Conditions—Joseph II.—Reforms by a Progressive Hapsburg are a Failure—Romanticism Replaces Sentimentalism in Literature—Sturm und Drang Period—Luther's Influence upon Letters—Frederick Succeeded by his Nephew—Effect of Prussia's Ascendancy in the German Empire—Its Coming Dissolution—Why Patriotism Could Not Exist—The Calm before the Hurricane

CHAPTER XV.

The Beginnings of the Storm—The United States of America and France—The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex—Execution of King and Queen—France a Ruin but Free—A Republic—First Coalition—Poland and its Partition—Austria Fighting Alone for the Empire—Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy—His Methods and Their Result—Treaty of Campo Formio—Three New Republics—Napoleon in Egypt—His Return—Second Coalition—Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers Given Away—Napoleon the Instrument of Fate

CHAPTER XVI.

Napoleon Emperor of the French—Third Coalition—Prussian Neutrality—The Rheinbund—Dissolution of the Empire and Abdication of Francis II.—Retribution for Prussia—Battle of Jena—Peace of Tilsit—A Continental Blockade—Marriage with Marie Louise

CHAPTER XVII.

Revolt of Bavarian Peasants—The League of Virtue—Invasion of Russia—Burning of Moscow—Retreat—General York Leads a Popular Movement—Prussia at War with Napoleon—The Battle of Leipzig—The Allies in Paris—Napoleon Deposed—Louis XVIII. King—Return of Napoleon—Waterloo and St. Helena

CHAPTER XVIII.

Reconstruction—The Act of Union—Sentiment of the People—Concessions—Francis II. Died—A Republic in France—Blaze of Revolutionary Fires in Europe—A National Parliament Granted—Its Failure—Napoleon III. in France—Magenta and Solferino—Revolution in Italy—Victor Emmanuel King—William I. King of Prussia

CHAPTER XIX.

King William and Bismarck—Schleswig-Holstein—Proposed Division—War against Austria—Königgrätz—The North German Union

CHAPTER XX.

Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion—Vacant Throne in Spain—A Hohenzollern Candidate—Benedetti and King William—War Declared by France—Metz—Sedan—King William at Versailles—Crowned Hereditary Emperor of the German Empire—Death of Emperor William I.—Emperor Frederick—His Unfulfilled Dreams and his Death—William II. Emperor

A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY.

CHAPTER I.

Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting, but it is indispensable. However fair the structure is to be, one must first lay the rough-hewn stones upon which it is to rest. It would be much pleasanter in this sketch to display at once the minarets and towers and stained-glass windows; but that can only be done when one's castle is in Spain.

Would we comprehend the Germany of to-day, we must hold firmly in our minds an epitome of what it has been, and see vividly the devious path of its development through the ages.

The German nation is of ancient lineage, and indeed belongs to the royal line of human descent, the Aryan; its ancestral roots running back until lost in the heart of Asia, in the mists of antiquity.

The home of the Aryan race is shrouded in mystery, as are the impelling causes which sent those successive tides of humanity into Europe. But we know with certainty that when the last great wave spread over Eastern Europe, or Russia, about one thousand years before Christ, the submergence of that continent was complete.

Before the coming of the Aryan, the Rhine flowed as now; the Alps pierced the sky with their glistening peaks as they do to-day; the Danube, the Rhône, hurried on, as now, toward the sea. Was it all a beautiful, unpeopled solitude, waiting in silence for the richly endowed Asiatic to come and possess it? Far from it! It was teeming with humanity—if, indeed, we may call such the race which modern research and discovery have revealed to us. It is only within the last thirty years that anything whatever has been known of prehistoric man; but now we are able to reconstruct him with probable accuracy. A creature bestial in appearance and in life; dwelling in caves, which, however, a dawning sense of a higher humanity led him to decorate with carvings of birds and fishes; but certain it is, the brain which inhabited that skull was incapable of performing the mental processes necessary to the simplest form of civilization; and life must have been to him simply a thing of fierce appetites and brutal instincts. Such was the being encountered by the Aryan, when he penetrated the mysterious land beyond the confines of Greece and Italy.

The extermination, and perhaps, to some extent, assimilation, of this terrible race must have required centuries of brutalizing conflict, and, it is easy to imagine, would have produced just such men as were the northern barbarians who, for five hundred years, terrorized Europe; men insensible to fear, terrible, fierce, but with fine instincts for civilization—dormant Aryan germs, which quickly developed when brought into contact with a superior race.

The earliest Indo-European migration is supposed to have been into Greece and Italy, where was laid the basis for the civilization of the world. The second was probably into Western Europe and the British Isles; then, after many centuries, the central and last, and at a time comparatively recent, into the Eastern portion of the continent.

So, by the fourth century B.C., three great divisions of the Aryan race occupied Europe north of Greece and Italy: the Keltic, the western; the Teutonic, the central; the Slavonic the eastern; and these, in turn, had ramified into new subdivisions or tribes.

To state it as in the pedigree of the individual, the Aryan was the founder, the father of the family; Slav, Teuton, and Kelt the three sons. Gaul and Briton were sons of the Kelt; Saxon, Angle, Helvetian, etc., sons of the Teuton; and all alike grandchildren of the Aryan; whom—to carry the illustration farther—we may imagine to have had older children, who long ago had left the paternal home and settled about the Caspian and Mediterranean seas: Mede, Persian, Greek, Roman; apparently bearing few marks of kinship to these uncouth younger brothers whom we have found in Europe in the fourth century B.C., but with nevertheless the same cradle and the same ancestral roots.

It is the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family with which we have to do now, between whom and their Keltic brothers there flowed the River Rhine.

Greece and Rome were unaware of the existence of the Teuton until about the year 330 B.C., when Pythias, a Greek navigator, came home from a voyage to the Baltic with terrible tales of the Goths whom he had met. Nearly one century before Christ the inhabitants of Italy were enabled to judge for themselves of the accuracy of the description. Driven from their homes by the inroads of the sea, the Goths poured in a hungry torrent down into the tempting vineyards of Northern Italy. Gigantic in stature, with long yellow hair, eyes blue but fierce—what wonder that the people thought they were scarcely human, and fled affrighted, leaving them to enjoy the vineyards at their leisure!

Accounts of this